Life in a small south Texas town of roughly 19,000 and its environs. The other towns are less than 5,000 people nearby.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Spring flowers & stuff

Spring flowers are here in south Texas, and I went out and took pictures yesterday on the way home from an appointment. I had to turn around several times in the car to get on the other side of the road, wait for cars to go by, and 3 little dogs that chased me. I was going to stop by the cow pasture that had the longhorns in it, but I was late for church last night, didn't have time to stop and take their picture. here are the spring pictures I've taken so far.

I was browsing around the net today, and found out on a Townhall.com blog, that this health care bill that passed, the Baucus bill, has lots of taxes on "medical devices". Some interesting Class II medical devices, that you really wouldn't think that need an extra tax.

1. Look up the section of the Baucus bill outline that places a tax on medical devices, which the bill refers to as “fees”. You can find it on page 215. Click here to find a copy of the Baucus outline.

2. This section of the bill entitled “Annual Fee on Manufacturers and Importers of Medical Devices” has the following language on what is covered under the taxes on medical devices: “covered domestic sales would include U.S. sales of medical devices regulated by the Food and Drug Administration [FDA] as a medical device [FOOTNOTE 103] and subject to premarketing and post marketing regulatory controls. The term would not include sales attributable to Class I products (as classified under the FDA product classification system)”

3. So now you have to look through the FDA web site section on medical devices, which you can do here. Then, you can conduct your own search and find out what Class of device a given medical device falls under by going to this search page. If you search “Tampon”, you will see that the FDA characterizes it as a Class II medical device and is therefore covered by the Obama tampon tax. You can also look up the following medical device terms and find out the same thing: like contact lenses and solutions, hearing aides, thermometers, oxygen bottles, wheelchairs, condoms and tampons.Source

Is this ridiculous or what? They're taxing everything possible it seems...down to the Nth degree to pay for this lousy bill that was signed into law. "No one making under $250,000 will have their taxes raised" bull! Here is pResident Obummer making this pledge:

He's a typical politician. They will say anything to get elected. This reminds me of what we are getting nowadays. Look at the takeovers of private industry. The student loan business is all going to be run by the government now, instead of private companies. THAT gem was stuck in with the sneaky way they rammed through the health care bill. They took over banks, car companies, student loans, health insurance, what is next? Guess what! It's the INTERNET!

The Detroit News has an editorial about how we don't NEED the FCC to ram through high-speed for every area in the US, while spending loads of money doing so. Private companies are taking care of this on their own - why should the government do this? And yet there are those gullible fools who believe those ten little words "I'm here from the government, and I'm here to help." BAH.

What would our forefathers think of today's nanny state, and growing more and more dependent upon a socialistic government? Back when Social Security started out:

The first monthly payment was issued on January 31, 1940 to Ida May Fuller of Ludlow, Vermont. In 1937, 1938 and 1939 she paid a total of $24.75 into the Social Security System. Her first check was for $22.54. After her second check, Fuller already had received more than she contributed over the three-year period. She lived to be 100 and collected a total of $22,888.92.

No - no birthday card for Nancy.. but I heard she shares a birthday with a look-alike.. I will post those today :P A good smack would fit great for a birthday present for her. Fox has been running all these phone messages they've been receiving in Washington since the democrats started complaining about them. Funny, Repubs have been getting them for years without griping.